Equality schmality

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. George Orwell.

Equality. A concept which usually starts from the best intentions but in the hands of the moronic can go so wrong: a beautiful example was this article in the Metro this morning.

This school has decided that pupils aren’t allowed to have hair shorter than a clippered ‘number two’ – not being familiar with clippers but I can take a hazardous guess this means hair is not totally short. Why a school decides on this, is absolutely beyond me: I understand the thought behind school-uniforms or even hair no longer than x, or having to tie it back when it comes to PE, science project etc – anywhere where hair can be caught in machinery, fire etc etc – but why hair cannot be shorter?

Apparently students with shorter hair than the aforementioned clippered number two need to wear a sunhat – so perhaps the school is worried pupils getting sunstroke. In March. In Britain. When the weather is reaching maximums of 15 degrees Celcius. I personally would be more worried whether they’d be wearing a coat.

To get to the crux of the problem: the majority of the pupils is black and parents claim they need shorter hair because otherwise their hair gets messy. They are unhappy their children need to wear special caps and feel they are being singled out. The school’s reaction to this is that the hair rule is school policy and all students are treated the same.

Ah Equality: when we ignore racial and gender differences; it works so well… until the rules don’t apply because of the difference.